


Circumstances

by alwaysyourqueen



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: Gen, I only write Rachel character studies apparently, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:07:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26741110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alwaysyourqueen/pseuds/alwaysyourqueen
Summary: Rather than spending my weekends shopping, I spend most of them wondering if I’m going to be killed in my sleep. Or worse, infested with a yeerk slug. That my life will be worse than over. Rather than going on dates, I share glances and thought-speak affection with my boyfriend.
Kudos: 12





	Circumstances

Most kids come to terms with their circumstances at some point. I thought I had, too, for the longest time. I had dealt with the reality that was fighting against the yeerks, and the reality that of the group of Animorphs I was the killer. I was the one who did the dirty work when someone needed to be taken care of. My hands were stained with blood so the others’ could be clean, and Olived with that just fine.

The funny thing is, that wasn’t what finally got to me. Bothered me as I stayed up at night. The pain and the suffering caused by our war was immense, but when you’re surrounded by pain and suffering every day you go numb. Everyone felt it. It’s hard to care when the pain you see gets worse every day. Cassie even quit for a while because of it. The way we got used to brutal murder was disturbing from an outside perspective.

What finally got me was the dating. I know, stupid. But my boyfriend is a bird. An honest to god red-tailed hawk. He can morph into human shape for two hours, but no longer than that or he’s stuck, permanently. Stuck as a human and officially out of the anti-yeerk fight. He wants to stay in the fight more than any of us. Not only has he given up the most, but he’s been the one most dedicated since day one.

I love Tobias. I love him more than anything. The feeling I hold onto when I’m losing myself in this fight and in who I’ve become is love. He’s the person I can love wholly and completely.

The problem isn’t my feelings. The problem is that I’m fifteen and I’ve never been on a date. At least not what I expect a date to be. We can sometimes watch most of a movie together, but that’s when we’re lucky enough to have a setup that doesn’t require going through a million people. We can’t go sit down at a restaurant because we’re too afraid to ask my parents to pay for it and risk “the talk” when my boyfriend can’t come inside. The closest we can get is flying together. And let me tell you, flying is amazing. But it’s not the same as being a cheesy teenager on a date.

It’s true that I love Tobias. Unfortunately, there are some days where my relationship with him reminds me of how much I’ve lost. My teenage years, which are supposed to be for my devotion to fashion, my ambitions for gymnastics, keeping my grades up. Instead, since winning an award for academic excellence, my grades have slowly been dropping to a B-. Doesn’t sound that bad, but that’s the best I can do compared my previous A-A+ range of grades.

Rather than spending my weekends shopping, I spend most of them wondering if I’m going to be killed in my sleep. Or worse, infested with a yeerk slug. That my life will be worse than over. Rather than going on dates, I share glances and thought-speak affection with my boyfriend.

These are the variety of entertaining thoughts I cycled through as I attempted to write an English paper. The window of my room was left open as I typed away what amounts to nonsense. I watched the flickering cursor for nearly thirty seconds before I realize I’ve run out of writing juice. All I was stuck thinking about was Tobias and the way I’d give anything to try it over again a different way. It being us.

I got up from my desk, and I walked over to my bed, and I fell face first onto it. My face smooshed into the comforter and I splayed out my arms and legs like some sort of understimulated cat. Actually, a cat would be doing something more fun than me. When cooped up and uncomfortable, cats scratch and make a fuss. Me? I throw a tantrum alone in my room. I figured out that that’s exactly what I want to do. I was upset and I wanted to throw a tantrum like a two year old.

First, I hit my bed with a clenched fist. Then with the other one. Then I started flailing my entire body, hitting my bed over and over. I’m too old to throw fits, but I needed one right then. I felt tears welling up in my eyes as I hit and hit, over and over. I moaned into the comforter the words, “It’s _not_ fair.” A small patch of wet blanket was forming under my face as tears insisted on continuing to emerge. After a few minutes of this movement, I could feel the energy leaving my limbs.

That almost felt like a joke. I could be on a mission for hours, swapping between morphs, clawing my way through the earth, flying for almost two entire hours, running at a speed faster than any human could reach even for a second, and yet three minutes of flailing my weak human arms and legs left me breathless. My throat hurt, too.

I rolled over onto my back, staring up at my ceiling. I laid out like a starfish, feeling the wet spot I had created under one of my ears. Normally that would have bothered me, but at that moment I just wanted to stop existing.

Jake was going to give me some s- crap for this later.

I stripped down to just my morphing outfit, my black leotard with black leggings. It made me feel cool, especially when compared to the much weirder morphing outfits of my friends. I only wished that I could morph shoes, even just ballet shoes or something else skintight. Still, no shoes were tight enough to take through a morph.

My window was still open, which was normally to let Tobias come over whenever he wanted to. Sometimes, like today, it was also my way out. I went to the door of my room, checking that it was locked, which it was, then went back to the window. I checked the clock beside my bed. 5:27. I just had to be back before 7:30. Preferably closer to 7. Mom probably wouldn’t have dinner ready before then anyways.

I began the process of morphing. It started with my legs, feeling as I shrunk down to about three and a quarter feet tall, a squished version of a human. At the same time, my skin began to be covered in lumpy patterns of the bald eagle’s feathers. I was sure that my face was turning quite literally white as a sheet, and I saw as my arms and legs were turning the strong dark brown of an eagle’s feathers. My vision turned sharp as the raptor’s vision replaced that of a human, and my face elongated and hardened into a razor-sharp beak. Talons replaced my toes, and my legs withered away into the harsh legs of my eagle form. I heard the crunching and grinding as my bones hollowed out and changed direction and length. The lumps on my skin burst outwards into feathers, the patterns settling in place. I also heard the gentle squish-squelch of my organs rearranged. Finally, my fingers and arms stretched out, farther and farther, and became my huge wings.

Leaving my room as a bald eagle is not necessarily an easy feat. Still, with a bit of hopping and a few quick wing flaps, I took off out the window. All I had to hope was that no controllers were watching my window at that moment. With the predator instincts of the bald eagle in my head, I doubted it would be a problem.

Once I was out the window, I flapped my powerful wings. Each almost three feet in length, more powerful than human arms, evolved specifically for the purpose of lifting my body through the air and carrying me over the wind. It was a powerful feeling, being this kind of a predator.

It was hard work, flapping to gain altitude. Not as hard as it was for some raptors, as my muscles were extremely strong already. Gaining height, bit by bit, I felt the wind rushing by me, trying to rustle my feathers and throw me off. I was the queen of the sky, and the wind would lose to me, in the end. I found myself in a thermal, a warm pillar of air. My eyes skirted over the ground and saw that the sun had heated asphalt, and the hot ground had sent a wave of force to carry me up. I spread my enormous wings and soared, higher and higher.

Soon I was far enough away it felt more like looking down on a toy landscape rather than the real world in which I lived. Tiny little circles that denoted people. Mostly brown, black, and blonde hair. One or two red-orange circles. Little toy cars zooming back and forth on long strips of black across the town. I saw grocery bags and kids running away from their parents. I saw tired parents trying to wrangle children Sara’s age at the same time as commuters were coming into their house. The world was going on under me, and the calm of being away from it all fell over me.

I let myself keep soaring until I was over the forest. I could have turned down to Cassie’s farm, grabbed my spare outfit and hung out there for a little while. Of course, I hadn’t told my mom I was going out, and I didn’t want to talk to Cassie right now. I didn’t want to talk to anybody. In fact, if I talked to anybody, they might see the part of me I hated the most. I wasn’t going to let them, if I could help it.

The sounds and sights of civilization shrunk behind me. I wasn’t too far still, but far enough that the eagle brain woke up slightly. This was part of where it lived, and it started to look more for prey. It would rather have a nice river or lake to pick up fish from, but it was opportunistic too. Rabbits, chipmunks, raccoons, beavers, or even a deer if it were feeling brave.

But I, Rachel, wasn’t hungry. I felt sick, actually, with the way I offered the eagle brain a chance. We were in tandem for a long few minutes, but before we got a good opportunity I realized that wasn’t what I wanted. Or at least I didn’t think so.

I decided I wanted a break from the predator brain. It was making me feel too much like Xena and not enough like Rachel, whoever that was. I began to lose altitude gradually, soaring downwards and mostly avoiding flapping except to maintain direction. I even dove for a short while, but without the sheer velocity of a falcon or hawk I still kept a gradual descent. After a little while, I settled onto the ground and began to demorph.

With my human body back, I sighed with relief. Now I was free to take my time because I didn’t have a morph-clock ticking away in my head. Still I shouldn’t take too long because I didn’t have a way of keeping time. My mom would still miss me if I was taking too long away. For all she knew, I was fully focused on my paper in my bedroom.

I didn’t want to go on a long walk without shoes, so I found a relatively flat area of ground to settle onto. I folded my legs and sank slightly into the forest dirt, hearing the soft sounds of the end of the day around me. I heard the sway of the trees in the breeze, with their leaves shaking with the force of the air around them. I heard the last sounds of birds that knew they had to succumb to those that owned the night. I knew when I remorphed the eagle, I wouldn’t have vision too much better than my human sight. Fortunately, there aren’t many things that attack a bald eagle. Definitely none near where I lived.

I was in more danger sitting here in human form than I was when I was the eagle, in all honesty. A human doesn’t have very good reaction time, almost no natural protection, and I wasn’t even equipped with shoes. If there was anything big enough and brave enough to attack me, I was done for.

In some ways I envied the eagle. Freedom to do what it wanted. Eat when it wanted, sleep when it wanted. An adult bald eagle has no natural predators beyond human hunters. It was feared, and rightfully so. I was a human girl. Human girls have only one natural predator: the yeerk. And if the human race was preyed upon enough by the yeerks, then every other naturally-occurring Earth species would go extinct too.

In other ways I would never, ever want to be the eagle. Eagles don’t go to the mall. Eagles don’t have friends, beyond a mate and nestlings. I didn’t want to think about the person I would be if I was alone like the eagle.

The relative peace of the forest didn’t last me very long. I heard a sound, something like a deer, only moving faster. Pounding so much harder on the ground. There was only one creature that moved with that kind of gait.

Suddenly, over my head, I saw a figure something like a blue deer. His stalk eyes turned around on me as he slowed to a stop in front of me.

<Rachel. It surprises me to see you out this far. You have your school tomorrow if I am not mistaken.>

I rolled my eyes. “Hello to you too, Ax.”

Aximili-Esgarrouth-Istheil let his head sag a little, which I think was his attempt at mimicking human embarrassment. He often got close but not quite on the money when it came to expressions for humans. To be fair to him, he also didn’t have a mouth, so that made it harder as well. He was trying, though, and I appreciated that. <I was merely curious about the reason for your presence.>

“Not your business,” I snapped back, and I instantly regretted it. He didn’t deserve that from me. “I needed to get out of the house and away from everything. I forgot these were your woods.”

<I don’t hold claim over this place. I merely take use of the landscape while I am staying here.>

Sometimes Ax is very astute. Other times he plays the role of both Oblivious Man and Captain Obvious. “Look, I really don’t want to be a jerk, but go away.”

Ax, despite my request, trotted around to be in my periphery instead of in front of me. <Rachel, I may not fully understand humans, but you are my friend. I can be “all ears.”>

“You’re not going to be much help with this problem. Thanks anyways.” I began to remorph even as I was speaking, feeling my face stretch into the shape of an eagle’s beak. “Do me a favor and don’t tell-” My words were cut off as I ceased to have a throat that could make human speech. Ax partially gazed away. I don’t blame him. We weren’t in a high stress situation, and morphing isn’t pretty. At least not when I do it.

I crossed the border from mostly human to mostly bird and continued, <Don’t tell Tobias I was here. He’s just going to worry. He’s got enough going on.>

He gave me a nod, realizing this was one of those cases where I was going to be too stubborn to press. If our lives weren’t in danger, I could get anyone except Jake or Cassie to back off.

<Thanks, bud. Take care of the forest.>

<It is my duty as an Andalite->

I stopped paying attention as he tried to fill the thought-speech vacancy with brave words about being an Andalite or whatever. I didn’t care. I didn’t want to care because I hated, even as I flew as a bald eagle, how messed up my life was becoming. Or maybe it was too late to use the word “becoming.”

I flew home, faster than I had flown out. I had lost track of time, and in my hurry to not talk to him I’d forgotten to ask Ax the time. I didn’t want my mom or sisters to worry that I had gone awol if they were calling me down for dinner.

Landing on my windowsill, one of my talons landed in an indentation. It wasn’t too noticeable, but I knew exactly where it was. It was one of a pair, actually. A pair of spots where a red-tailed hawk’s talons fit perfectly. That thought brought me right back down to reality. The reality in which I had thrown a tantrum because I couldn’t go to Shakespeare in Love with my boyfriend because we’d have to run out before Act 3 so he wouldn’t be permanently stuck as a human.

Once again, I was hating my life.

That’s not completely fair. I don’t _hate_ my life. But it does suck sometimes. The complicated nature of it sucks. The fact that I don’t have the option of being a normal teenager sucks. I also don’t hate it. I love being a warrior and having the power of any animal in my collection at my disposal whenever I want. It’s more accurate to hate myself for living my life.

I demorphed, pulled on my clothes again, and looked at the clock next to my bed. 6:31. An hour to spare from my original plan. It felt like a lot more than an hour had passed, but that happens sometimes when you get stuck in deep thoughts. I turned my gaze to the computer, the blinking light of the cursor the only thing changing on the screen. There were two paragraphs of nothing written. I saved the document, closed it, and turned off the computer. That was going to be a problem for another day.

As if on cue, I heard knocking on my door. Jordan’s voice announced, “Raaaaachel? Mom called and said she’s staying late. She said we can order Chinese.”

There are times when I hate being a big sister. “I’ll call and get some stuff. The Mongolian beef is all mine.”

“Sara wants chow mein.” I heard Jordan’s footsteps echo down the hallway, probably going back to her room to do…whatever it is she did with her time.

Maybe I was a bad big sister for not knowing how my sisters spent their time. I suddenly found myself wracking my brain, trying to remember. Sara was in fourth grade. She used to like to watch my soccer games before I quit. She likes princesses and science. Jordan was in sixth grade. She likes Marco (ew) and arcade games. I thought and thought, but it felt like all the information about Rachel’s family was far away. I was some person with an old copy of a book on Rachel’s life, but I’d lost the table of contents and the index.

Not a good feeling.

I moved like a robot as I headed downstairs and ordered Chinese food, with extra for leftovers, from a place nearby for delivery. I found the little envelope of money Mom leaves for us when she won’t be home in time to pay for the food. I flipped through the bills, counting in my head and calculating the tip I’d give the delivery guy.

Sara came into the kitchen and, without saying anything, wrapped her arms around me. I froze, for an instant, as my warrior instincts kicked in. Be ready to fight, ready to defend yourself.

But I turned my head and just saw my little sister there. A mini me. A girl with blonde hair, big brown eyes, and normally a very cute smile. Right now she had a frown.

“What’s up?” I asked lamely.

“I love you, Rachel.”

My family aren’t very big on the touchy-feely things. We love one another, and we do give hugs when we won’t see one another for a while. This type of thing is completely out of my ballpark.

“I love you too, Sare. Is something wrong?”

“I just don’t want you to forget.”

That hit me like a truck. It felt like, for a second, she knew. Like she had opened me up and seen everything I was dealing with, all those feelings that buried the Rachel that used to live in this house deep, deep down. “I won’t forget, you little worry wart. Now c’mon, let’s go watch something until the food gets here.”

Sara let go of my legs and grabbed my hand instead. For a moment she wasn’t Sara, the fourth grader, but instead was Sara who had learned how to grab my hand for support before she learned to walk. The Sara who knew her big sister Rachel would come defend her if she got bullied in kindergarten. The reason I did what I did.

I smiled, just a little, to myself, because I remembered. I gave up all that normal stuff for her. And for Jordan. For the little girls who needed Rachels to be the first line of defense. Better me than them.


End file.
